


The fire that doesn't burn

by olandesevolante



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Light Swearing, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 10:25:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12604500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olandesevolante/pseuds/olandesevolante
Summary: Stan is cooking, his hands moving quickly, knowing perfectly what they have to do; and Roger is sure those pancakes will be perfect as usual, as they always are when he’s invited at Stan’s home to spend some days together. On the radio there’s some U2 song that Stan loves and that Roger can’t name but knows it calms Stan before a match. Myla and Charlene are disputing on a toy they won’t care about anymore in five minutes, but that right now is the most important thing on Earth, while Alexia is quietly drinking her orange juice.Put like this, everything is at its own place. Except anything is.(or, Roger wakes up in a family that isn’t his.)





	The fire that doesn't burn

**Author's Note:**

> -I blame this on a series of things: the course of constitutional law, where we discussed language policy in Switzerland, something that got my mind starting to wander at how Stan and Roger communicate (I know, they speak in French. But French isn’t Roger’s first language, so I always feeling that for him it’s actually always a little difficult to use it, even if he’s been speaking it for so long – you know, that’s probably just my inner linguist speaking); the last Easter evening, spent watching Christmas movies (yes, for real) like “The family man”, which gave me the starting point of this all; the last Roland Garros, because yes (still not over the fact I missed Wawrinka-Murray because of university, seriously);  
> -the story is set around April of this year (actually, this is a completely useless information);  
> -title and quotes all over the story are borrowed from the song “Odio le favole” by Ermal Meta, which is actually another thing that I blame for the genesis of this story;  
> -English is not my first language, so please forgive my mistakes. (Also, it's unbeta'd, so every mistake is mine.)  
> \- check the amazing playlist that thesaddestboner, who also created the beautiful art, made for this work because it's just perfect! You can find it @ https://thesaddestboner.dreamwidth.org/800393.html  
> -written for the round 5 of RPF Big Bang Challange.

 

 __

 

_“I don't know if you miss me,_

_I miss you and you don't know it.”_

 

When Roger wakes up, he’s so buried in a pleasant, warm feeling, all wrapped up in his covers, that at first he doesn’t realize anything. He is in those first moments when you’ve just woken up and before conscience kicks in, everything is fine, you don’t remember anything, you don’t think of anything, you’re just feeling well. Then, unexpected, a feeling startles him. The feeling of the covers on his body is strange; he feels them on his entire body, as if he was naked, except for his briefs. And he totally doesn’t remember falling asleep nearly naked; actually, he remembers going to bed alone because of an headache while Mirka and his kids were watching a cartoon on the television.

He opens his eyes and see the wall in front of him, of a light shade of orange. Roger is sure that, at his home, the bedroom has light blue walls, and he is also sure he didn’t fall asleep in some hotel.  

He turns around to see a sleeping figure next to him, warm, almost all under the covers, and a sigh of relief escapes his lips, knowing that Mirka will have an explanation for everything. She always has. Roger moves his arm toward her to caress his hair, and there stops, in shock. He might not be a hundred percent sure about the colour of the walls of his bedroom (he is, actually, but there might be a chance the morning light is colouring the room in some strange way, or, at least, he thinks it might be possible), but he can’t be wrong about this, Mirka has long hair, long and brown and he loves to card his fingers through them and gently wake her up in the mornings. What he’s just touched, though, are short hair. And it doesn’t make sense _at all_.

Then the figure stirs and moves and Roger’s eyes go completely opened in shock as he recognize the yawning body next to his. _It can’t be true_ , he thinks. _I must be still asleep_. Because next to him there’s Stan, his best friend, and there is no way he’s naked in a bed with Stanislas Wawrinka. And, especially, the other man doesn’t seem at all having a problem with being in bed with Roger, his friend Roger Federer, since he was deeply asleep and now that the touch of Roger’s hand awoke him, he’s just not bothered by his presence.

«Why are you waking me up today too, it’s Sunday and we went to bed late, let me sleep some more, I’m begging you...», grunts Stan, slowly and messy, approaching him and not opening his eyes. Roger freezes as Stan’s hair touch his bare chest.

«Stan...», he murmurs, careful not to touch him and moving back a little, so that his head isn’t anymore touching him. «Stan», he repeats, louder.

«Mmm», just answers him, a hint of annoyance in the background. Only now Stan opens his eyes and watch him directly in his eyes, with something so soft in them that makes Roger’s stomach clench. It’s not what he expects when it comes to Stan, that’s for sure. «You are the most annoying person of this entire world when it’s morning, Roger. Seven millions of people on this Earth, and I got to end up with one who can’t let other people sleep when he’s awake. I swear this is enough Purgatory for me to go straight to Paradise when I’m dead.»

Then, moving naturally, as if it’s something he always does, he stretches his neck and gives him a kiss, nothing more than a slight brush of lips, and Roger doesn’t have the strength to do absolutely anything; if possible, he’s in even more shock than before.

«Roger? Are you not feeling well?», asks Stan, worried at the complete lack of any type of reaction from Roger, who doesn’t answer, again, and looks frozen. «Roger?», asks again Stan, trying to get a grip on his hand. But, before he succeeds, Roger is jumping out of the bed and looking at him with what seems to be actual fear in his eyes, and Stan frowns at his behaviour.

«Where am I?», asks Roger, and he can feel his own voice trembling.

«Roger, did you go out of your head while sleeping? Where do you think you can be, if not in our home?»

 _Our_. «O-our. Our home. We don’t have a home, Stan.»

The younger frowns. «What the hell are you babbling, Roger. Don’t say bullshit, it’s freaking early in the morning and you know I need time and a cup of coffee to start my brain when you wake me up this early.»

«No, I don’t know your brain in the morning, Stan, I don’t!», he replies, and his voice is pitched high now, so much that Stan stops rubbing idly at his eyes and gives him a stern look.

«Why the hell are you shouting now, you’ll wake up the kids too, and God knows if I can understand what they say when I’ve just woken up after just few hours of sleep...»

«Stan. We don’t have kids.»

That’s when Stan looks at him with something more than that mix of curiosity and annoyance. This time, Roger can feel it, it’s more like anger what radiates from him. «What the fuck are you saying, Roger. What the fuck. Why don’t you go in the other room and see Alexia, Myla or Charlene hopefully still sleeping and tell me if they don’t exist. You damn idiot.»

Roger’s heart jumps at least three or four beats. It can’t be true, Stan can’t have said those names, exactly those names. If this is a dream, it has to end right now because it’s starting to freak him out, and a lot. He draws a long breath, trying to relax. It doesn’t work.

Surely Stan isn’t helping at all his attempts, now, when he’s looking at him as if he’s  a mad man. «If this is all some fucking sort of prank, Roger, I tell you, I’ll smash your-»

«Stan,» he interrupts the other man before he can hear whatever menace his friend was going to say. «Stan, I don’t know what the fuck is going on! I went to bed with an headache last night and when I woke up I was in another place, in a house I don’t know--»

«In a house you don’t know?! What the fuck, Roger, it’s years that we’re living here now, are you crazy?!»

«Fuck, no, listen to me! I wake up and it seems I have all another family, and-»

«ANOTHER FAMILY?!», shouts Stan, not caring (or probably not remembering anymore) about the daughters still asleep; Roger thinks he’s never seen him so angry, never, probably because Stan isn’t a man a lot of times really angry, apart from himself when on the court he’s not playing as he would like to. His words must have touched him, a lot, but he really doesn’t understand what’s going on. Stan jumps out of the bed and goes straight to Roger, his face promising at least a punch. On his nose. Hard. All this only if he’s lucky.

«Dads?», comes a tiny voice from the door, that has the power to stop whatever Stan was planning to do to him and his face. Roger sees him closing his eyes for the briefest of moments, as if trying to recollect his usual self and don’t show all the anger he has right now, before watching Myla.

«Hey, princess, good morning. I’m sorry if we woke you up», he says. Myla runs to him to give him a hug, and Stan picks her up, gives her a quick peck on her cheek. Myla laughs. Roger is completely frozen, seeing his daughter – it’s his daughter, no matter what Stan can say or else, that Myla is his Myla, his and Mirka’s – running to hug Stan and calling him dad. He seriously feels himself fainting this time, he’s not sure he can take anything more of all of this story. He leans to the wardrobe, his hand clutching the desk next to it, and breathes, breathes as if he was back on the tennis court and this was a Wimbledon final, and he had to calm down and concentrate himself, after a stupid mistake, the best that he can to win the match. In this case, to grasp a clue about what is happening around him.

«Let me down, I want to give a hug to dad too», he hears Myla say, and when he opens his eyes he sees Stan talking to her.

«Honey, your dad isn’t feeling really well, don’t bother him, ok?»

«Just a little hug, dad...»

The little girl runs and embrace Roger before Stan can say another word, her tiny hands around his legs. Stan shoots him a death glare, nodding toward the girl. Roger feels stiff; he tries at least to caress her hair, but he spends too much time moving his arm, and in the while Myla is already going away from him. Roger thinks he’d never said it and it’s something he thought he’d never said, but it’s with relief that this time he watches his daughter going away from him; he doesn’t know how to behave, what to do, not when he still doesn’t have a clue about what seems it’s his life here, wherever “here” is.

«Go back to your bedroom, yes? You and Charlene get ready, and wake up Alexia too, I’ll make you all breakfast, I bought those cereals you love so much, sweetie, the ones with chocolate too», says quietly Stan, caressing gently her hair; it seems there’s nothing more of that anger he had before, as if talking with Myla made him come back to his usual self. The little girl flashes him an enormous smile before running away, presumably in her room.

«What am I doing here?», whispers Roger, his head spinning faster and faster. He must look completely devastated, because Stan, now, puts his hands on both sides of his face, a worried expression painted on his own, and for a moment Roger is grateful, _grateful_ , because right now the world stopped spinning like crazy and his nausea feels a little better – but in a twist of seconds he realizes what’s happening and where he is, and jumps back. Stan’s face is so broken he almost feel bad. Almost. He just needs the time to realize what he’s actually thinking to understand that no, he can’t have just thought that. He’s already going crazy with enough questions without worrying that much about hurting Stan.

«Listen. I’ll go down and get the breakfast ready for the children, while you come back down to Earth, ok?»

Roger hears him and sees in his mind an image: his daughters, sitting at a table he has never seen, eating the breakfast Stan prepared for them, laughing at the funny faces he would surely pull for them, his usual cup of coffee in a hand, smiling. The world starts spinning faster again.

«No. I have to go. Away.»

«To go where, Roger, it’s Sunday morning and---»

But Roger runs, runs out of the room brushing past him, accidentally hitting him in the shoulder and feeling his own body burn at the touch. He shivers, lacking the courage to look at Stan; instead, he runs in the corridor, in the way he feels is the right one for the exit, picks up the first jacket he finds and throws himself out of the door, not before having the time to hear Charlene’s voice, calling for Stan.

 

\-----

 

Roger realizes soon that there’s more or less nowhere he can go; he doesn’t even know where he is. He’s sure last night he went to bed and he was in Basel, but this house isn’t the one he went sleeping in, and surely the city he’s now wandering in is not Basel, not even another place in Basel that’s not his home. He’s sure, he knows it too well not to be aware of it.

He feels he’s already been here, though, the place is not completely unfamiliar. If only his head stopped hurting so much, as if someone put a nail in it, he would probably focus better on how to recognize this city.

_“...I told you you had to try this place, Roger. Told you that, whatever Basel has, it can’t compare to this.”_

_Roger rolls mockingly his eyes at Stan, but laughs in the while. It’s true, Stan was right, he’d never tried a better hot chocolate than the one he made him taste at this small place in Lausanne, but for nothing in the world he’d give him the satisfaction of saying that something here is better than in his beloved Basel._

Lausanne, he remembers snapping back from the memory. He remembers spending some time here with Stan on holiday as his guest, having him as a guide to a city he liked but never fully appreciated, too absorbed in the dreams of his career at the time. That house in which he woke up, though, didn’t look like the one Stan used to own. Another thing to add to the pile of situations that, this morning, don’t make sense.

 _God_ , it’s all that Roger can think. He doesn’t know if he just woke up with this headache that is threatening to kill him or if he’s giving it himself, with all his thoughts. He just knows he feels like throwing up now, in this alley.

He lets himself fall on a bench, taking big breaths that are supposed to help him calm down, but that aren’t really working. Actually, they can’t work, because he just can’t calm down. He doesn’t know what to do, where to go: he should be able to come back home (his stomach clenches at the idea of calling a place that’s not his real home like that, but he can’t help it) but it would mean deal with a Stan that is sure they’re married, and with (Roger’s stomach does a flip here) their three kids too, and he just can’t, not now. Though, he can’t just sit down on a bench forever, hoping that at some point everything will be back to normal - even if he might, since Roger just doesn’t think he can actually do something to convince Stan they’re not a family at all.

The weather though is cold enough to make him shiver, so he collects himself and just walks into the first café he can find, and it’s with relief that he welcomes the fact that the young waitress doesn’t give away any sign that she has recognized him; probably it’s not the first time he sits here, since it’s near where he’s supposed to live. Roger even manages to give her a little smile when she comes back bringing his coffee, and then gulps it down in one go, enjoying the relief of having something warm running in his stomach, so tormented this morning.

There are some newspapers laying on the little table next to his, and Roger picks them up. He’s not sure about what he’s searching on them, but he flicks rapidly through the news until he reaches the sport section. Seems like Switzerland NT is having troubles to gain enough points to reach the qualification for the next World Cup, and Roger, despite the situation, cringes inside a bit. He searches some more, there aren’t big tournaments on at the moment in the tennis world, but there’s some news about it all the same. Roger gasps when he sees it: a photo of him and Stan laughing together, his own arm slung around the younger’s waist, in an article that talks about their tennis academy, that is already proving to be very promising.

A tennis academy in Lausanne. He and Stan opened it after having both retired. He’s retired. _What_.

Roger starts feeling again shivers on his arms, and this time it can’t be the cold weather, since the place is warm enough – well, at least it was until some seconds ago. Roger reaches the back of the chair for his jacket and wears it, knowing that it won’t stop the shivering, but he does it either way, in the attempt of doing something reasonable. He wears it and his nostrils are full now with a scent he hasn’t noticed before, too absorbed in his thoughts and his panic. He feels his cheeks reddening as he recognizes it for the scent that he breathed this morning in bed. He picked a random jacket, the first one he found under his hands before running away from the house, and probably (definitely) he picked Stan’s one.

There’s a lump in his throat as the memories of that morning come back, the hurt look on Stan’s face being the biggest problem. He’s seen his friend in a bad mood many times, he tried his best to cheer him up many times after a match in which Stan was frustrated because he just couldn’t play how he knew to, and how he wanted to. He’s seen the difficult moments after he and his wife, Ilham, got divorced, and the worry on Stan’s face at the idea of not knowing what to do in order to do the best for his daughter. And still, when he thinks of the face he gave him this morning, when Roger told him that this wasn’t his family, he’s sure that he has never seen his friend so upset, never.

And now he’s left him, alone, thinking his husband has gone crazy. A pang of guilt hits him, inevitable. He might have never married Stan in his life, but he’s among the most important people of his life, and he guess he can count them on the fingers of one hand. He hates hurting Stan, he hates even the thought of it.

 

 

\-----

 

Roger comes back home a lot of hours after he ran out of it, his hands deep down the pockets of Stan’s jacket, his headache still throbbing like hell and without the faintest idea of what he’s going to do or even to say. Stan opens the door when he rings the bell, acknowledging that he has no keys for this place, and the love he sees in those eyes makes his heart clench, because he knows the Roger that lives here would have never done that to Stan, and he too would have never told his Stan that he’s basically a liar, but he doesn’t know how to act like this Roger. Hell, if this Roger even exists, he doesn’t know anymore what to think. He enters the place and leaves the jacket where he found it, in absolute silence. He fidgets with it, carefully tucks it away while deciding what to say. Then, he finally turns and faces Stan, when he feels the time that is passing is a lot, and he doesn’t still know anything.

«I only know that I am Roger Federer, but of all this, of this house, of us... I don’t have any memory», _I’m sorry_ , he’s on the verge of saying, but something in the hurtful look on Stan’s face makes him reconsider saying it. He feels it inside his chest: it would more than probably just hurt Stan more.

«I understand», he only says, and he sounds gentle, more than one could have ever expected. It’s not true, Roger knows, he’s the first that doesn’t understand and it’s happening to him, but he appreciates his answer. He feels something warm, inside his chest, now. «What about we talk about it?»

Roger nods, not trusting his voice at all right now, and goes into the kitchen, following Stan, who gestures for him to sit down while he pours something in a cup, probably tea, and brings it to the table with a plate of biscuits that Roger knows he himself made; he remembers waking up as a host in Stan’s house and finding him baking them, not just once. He’d smile at the memory, had him been in another situation.

«You probably didn’t eat anything, all this time outside home...», says the younger, low-pitched voice and eyes fixed on the ground, almost shy. Roger can’t tell why he’s behaving this way, but he takes one biscuit even if his stomach is still too clenched to eat something. He just doesn’t want to disappoint this Stan who’s being so gentle, even if he ran away from him as if he was poisoned this morning. Roger watches him pouring something else in his coup, something darker, and the words just slip out of his mouth before he can think twice:

«You shouldn’t be drinking coffee this late, it’s bad for your health.» Stan doesn’t answer, but flinches and makes a strange face, as if he’s just hit him with a punch. Maybe this is something here Roger already told him? He can’t know.

«Where are the kids?», asks Roger, trying to distract him.

«Already went to bed. Myla... Myla made a drawing for you, says she’ll give it to you tomorrow. I didn’t know what to tell her when she asked why you weren’t there today.» Stan stops there, his Adam’s apple moving once up and down. Roger is silent for a while, something heavy settling in his stomach. He wouldn’t say it’s guilt, he doesn’t _really_ know this family, but he wouldn’t have a different name to give it.

«I’m sorry for this morning, I didn’t want to run away like a thief, and leave you alone with the kids and having to make up things for them, but I was so scared. I still am. I don’t recognize anything in this life. Stan, for how crazy it can sound, this isn’t my reality. Last night I went to bed in my house, in Basel, I remember telling Mirka I wasn’t feeling well, and actually, my headache is still here, but that’s the only thing that’s the same as last night.»

Stan quirks an eyebrow. «Mirka?»

«Oh. In my world, I met this girl at the Olympic Games and, uhm, we fell in love, she was a tennis player too and-»

But the younger interrupts him. «Roger, I know who Mirka is. She used to be your manager when you were playing, and your girlfriend too before us, and she’s also the mother of our daughters. Well, of two of them.»

Roger feels something like an headache adding to the headache he already has, hearing these words from Stan. «Mirka is my _wife_. And we’re both still playing... Actually, you’re probably in the best moment of your career, you managed to win some titles in the last years. While here, we’re both retired, right? I saw an article about our tennis academy.»

Stan furrows his brow. «You saw an article?»

«Uhm. Yeah, this afternoon, I ended up in a café at some point, and I wanted to know more about where I’ve ended, so I tried to see on a newspaper there if the sport section had something about me. Guess I was lucky?»

«Roger Federer searching about his own life on a newspaper, in Lausanne. You could have stopped whoever in the streets, and they would have told you everything, probably even the colour of the blanket you were wrapped in when you were born.» And Stan is laughing at that, his eyes are crinkling at the mere thought of the situation, and Roger feels his body relaxing a bit at the sight.

«Yeah, and probably ended up in a police station», snorts then. «Anyway. I’m married and I have four kids, I have twin boys too. Where are they?»

When he talks about his kids, two of them happening to be two of the exact kids that are sleeping in the next room, that’s when he can see Stan frowning again, looking jealous of what he’s just said: a family, a different one, their daughters with someone else.

«They never existed, here», he just say, dryly.

Stan pours himself another cup of coffee. This time, Roger knows best than to say anything, and just lets him drink it.

«There’s something wrong», he says.

«I know», it’s all that Roger can answer. The tea and the biscuits calmed him down a bit, and though he still feels completely out of place and time, he’s feeling a bit better now. Well, if he just shuts down his brain screaming that no, nothing is fine.

«I think you need to rest some», tells him Stan, softly, and Roger can’t disagree. Despite the incredible situation and the fact that he wants to know everything he can and how to come back home, he finds it tiring and tiring to stay focused on what’s happening, on putting his words in the right order and understand everything Stan says. The day is wearing off on him, this rollercoaster of emotions surely doesn’t help.

«But you haven’t told me anything, and-» _I want to know_ , Roger was going to ask, but he finds himself yawning in the middle of the sentence. Stan smiles at him basically threatening to fall asleep on the table, and gestures him to follow himself, and Roger just does as told without trying to question further, until they reach the bedroom he escaped from this morning. He looks at it for some moments, remembering what happened, and this time he’s sure he feels kind of guilty for that. He was freaking out, but for Stan it must have been just as difficult as it was for him.

«I can sleep in the other room», Stan says when he sees him standing there on the door and not moving, absorbed in his thoughts, but Roger stops him.

«No,», he pleads, his big, dark eyes fixed in Stan’s ones. «Don’t... don’t leave me alone, please. It makes no sense, but if there’s something that can keep me grounded, on whatever ground we are right now, it’s you. Talking with you now is the only thing that made me feel better during this day.». He always has, he thinks. When the world was spinning too fast, with his many trophies and the glory and the long tournaments away from home, the presence of Stan was always reassuring. His friend would never treat him like the God of tennis, all the contrary; he got over his youth crush very soon, as they started playing doubles together, and in private they’ve always been nothing else than best friends. It has always felt great to know there was someone to whom he could always talk about everything, it’s not so easy to find it when you’re living the uprooted life of the professional tennis player.

Why the hell is he even thinking about this now.

«Ok», he just says, giving him at first a suspicious look but then relaxing, and goes under the covers, careful to stay on his own half of the bed, and not near the centre of it, where he was this morning. Roger quickly changes into his pyjamas, and joins him in the other half of the bed. He’s too tired to do or say anything else, and his eyes can’t stay open a second more when he leans his head on the pillow; but, before actually falling asleep, he can sense Stan staring at him in the dark, vigilant and curious. Also, probably scared of him. Maybe worried too.

 

\-----

 

When Roger wakes up, it takes him some moments to remember what happened the day before. For a brief moment, he thinks he’s just dreamt of that all, but then he opens his eyes and the wall in front of him is still orange, so no, he’s not imagined anything. He lets out a long breath in something similar to exasperation.

Next to him, Stan is still sleeping – Roger isn’t sure about how much later than him, but he knows Stan passed some time studying him before giving in to sleeping. During the night, he’s moved nearer, not enough to touch him with the whole of his body; probably even while he was sleeping he remembered that this Roger isn’t used at sharing a bed with him. His right hand, though, is clutching Roger’s shirt, low, near his belly. Habit, affection, possessiveness, fear: Roger wouldn’t be able to find the reason behind the gesture, but he doesn’t move anymore in order not to wake him up.

Not that this is a problem for much longer: the alarm clock starts ringing with an awful sound that makes Stan startle and roll over to shut it down as quick as he can. Then, he looks at Roger, unsure, probably trying to check without asking if he’s still out of his mind.

«Uhm... good morning?», murmurs Roger, unsure. He can feel Stan’s disappointment at the confirmation that his Roger isn’t back, even if the younger doesn’t say anything about it, or even just pull a face.

«Good morning», he answers back, stretching a bit. Then, he gives Roger a very serious look. «Listen... I understand you’re still not the same person I’m married to, but please, _please_. I don’t have the strength to understand what’s happening, figure out how much I have to explain it to three kids. Kids which, unfortunately, I have now to wake up because they have to go to school. And even if I tell them that their dad isn’t feeling well and is still resting, they’re still coming here to make sure everything is fine, because I’m sure it’s what they’ll do, and say they can’t leave if they don’t give their dad a kiss to make him better. So, please, help me and try to act as if you were living a normal Monday morning in your family, try to act as if you belong here, like their dad always do.»

Roger blinks at the stream of words Stan just said, and at the speed he spoke; he isn’t sure he can do this, but he’s also sure he can’t say no to Stan. He can never do it, surely he won’t when Stan is looking at him with those pleading eyes, with that expression painted on his face, the one of a man who just wants nothing to touch the serenity of his family.

«Good», he says then without waiting for Roger to say it out loud, and slips out of the bed and of the bedroom. Roger can hear his voice, muffled, in the other room, waking up the daughters.

He takes his time with a shower, feeling his stomach knitted because of the anxiety. He’s Roger Federer, and at the same time he isn’t, or, better, he isn’t the Roger Federer this family expects to see.

When he finally reaches the kitchen, he’s surprised by the normality that the scene in front of him displays, just as if everything is perfectly at its place. Stan is cooking, his hands moving quickly, knowing perfectly what they have to do; and Roger is sure those pancakes will be perfect as usual, as they always are when he’s invited at Stan’s home to spend some days together. On the radio there’s some U2 song that Stan loves and that Roger can’t name but knows it calms Stan before a match. Myla and Charlene are disputing on a toy they won’t care about anymore in five minutes, but that right now is the most important thing on Earth, while Alexia is quietly drinking her orange juice. When Roger approaches him, unsure about what to do, Stan touches briefly his curls, probably out of habit, and God knows how he hates when someone does that and how Stan couldn’t care less and do it all the same, and how he still lets him always do that.

Put like this, everything is at its own place. Except anything is.                

«Just sit down, and bring this with you», whispers Stan, giving him a big plate full of the pancakes he’s just prepared, and Roger does as he’s told. As soon as he sits down, Charlene comes nearer to him and looks at him with big eyes.

«Dad, I’ve thought about it,» she declares.

«About... what? I’m sorry, I can’t remember now...», he tries to make some excuses, searching for Stan with his eyes but the man is too busy with cooking right now, so he probably hasn’t even heard his daughter.

«The dog!»

«The dog? Oh. The dog, yes. Sure. It’s amazing, sweetheart.»

Charlene’s smile could lit up the entire house now, bless her. «Really dad I can? Heléne says his dog is having puppies next month, and she can give me one!»

«We already talked about it, Charlene», Stan’s voice arrives with Roger’s relief because he has no clue about what the Roger in this world wants about having a dog at home, and about who this Heléne is. «Are you sure you can take care of a dog?»

«Yes, dad. I promise I’m going to play with it every day. And Myla and Alexia too.» The other two girls exchange a look between them before nodding, and Roger can’t help thinking Charlene promised them something to get them answering in her favour now.

«Mmm. And what about feeding it? You know a dog doesn’t live thanks to air only, right?» Stan talks while putting some jam on his pancake, his fingers smeared with it, in a way that makes Roger’s hands itch with the desire of cleaning them. He brushes past these thoughts quickly.

«But dad», starts Charlene, frowning. «You always make us breakfast and lunch and dinner, so there’s no need to cook for him too, I can give it some from my plate.»

Roger can’t help smiling at the cuteness of that sentence, and Stan too can’t keep his expression straight at those words. «What about I cook some more, so it can have its own plate and you will eat enough and not disappear?», says and gives her a wink.

Charlene looks ecstatic.

«Come on, go and take your jackets and bags, I’ll be waiting for you in the car, I will drive you all today, your dad has an headache and can’t.» All the three girls give Roger an apprehensive look that he brushes off with a gesture of his hand.  «Stan is just exaggerating, I haven’t slept much, but I’m fine, don’t worry about me now.»

When they’re all out, Stan talks to him: «I bring them to school, when I come back, we can talk, ok?», and brushes his fingers lightly on his curls. Definitely an habit. Then, the girls are back, and each of them has to leave a kiss on Roger’s cheek before going out.

Being immersed in the silence, which is what Roger had wanted since he woke up here yesterday, now feels strange. He understands it now, that this breakfast hasn’t been at all unpleasant, all the contrary; it felt like being in a real family. He puts the plates in the sink, washes them quickly (his Stan hates doing that, his Stan loves to get them dirty and prepare a lot of different dishes, so when he’s invited at his home it’s always him who washes them), and then wanders in the house.

There are some photos on the shelves in the living room. Some of the daughters together, in different places, always smiling. One with only Stan and a goat, and Roger wonders why they should have that photo in a frame. One with him and Stan finely dressed, smiling, a glass of champagne in their hands, looking at something that’s not in the photo but that’s clearly amusing, judging from their expressions.

«It’s the day of our wedding», answers Stan to the question he never asked. He didn’t hear him coming back, too absorbed in the study of the photos, but he’s not startled. «And we were watching my drunk brother trying to invite Serena Williams to dance with him.»

«It makes sense», chuckles Roger.  «So, we’re married?»

«Yeah. Three years ago. After we won the Davis Cup», Stan smiles fondly at the memory. «You were fidgeting all the ceremony with the buttons of your jacket, you don’t know how much I wanted to take your hands in mines to make them stop.»

«How did it happen? I mean, how did we ended up... together?»

Stan sits down on the sofa. «After the Olympic games in Beijing. God, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you as drunk as that night, when we got back to the hotel you were having troubles even staying on your legs. And I wasn’t in a better situation, but at least my legs still worked. So, I brought you back in your room and made you sit on your bed, while you kept babbling something incomprehensible, still don’t know what since the day after you didn’t have a clue about it. I was telling you goodnight, even if it was almost morning, and you just didn’t let my wrist go. I tried to open your fingers, and you made such annoyed sounds, I couldn’t help laughing at those. But, as I said, I was pretty much drunk too, so the laughs made me fall on the bed with you, and I was finding it hard to get up after it. Because of the laughs, and because you started kissing my neck too, which at the moment felt like being in heaven.» Stan looks up at him and frowns. «Roger, are you feeling well? You’ve become so pale, have a sit», and makes some room on the sofa for him.

But Roger never sits, lost in his thoughts and memories that Stan’s words have woken up.

Severin told him back when they started playing doubles, that the younger Swiss looked at him completely starstruck, and he laughed, because yeah, at the time everyone was starting to look at him like that, so he didn’t even found a reason to talk about it. Plus, as soon as they found that they actually played well together, Stan lost that look very quickly. On the court, they clicked together just perfectly, and outside he never said anything about having feelings for Roger, never gave the idea of wanting something more from the older Swiss.

He’s lying to himself. No, it’s not true that nothing ever happened between him and Stan. The night in which they won the Olympic gold they got completely wasted, and they kissed. Not something incredible, not something that made their head spin, head over heels and unicorns and all, no, just pure happiness mixed to their drunkenness. The day after they laughed about it – it was actually pretty much a miracle they remembered it, considered how drunk they were that night, but that was it. They didn’t even had to discuss it.

Maybe it’s not that they didn’t have to discuss it. Maybe they just didn’t do it; Roger can’t say he avoided it on purpose, but surely wasn’t all that eager at the idea of talking about drunk kissing his best friend. And Stan never pushed, or, at least, Roger doesn’t think so.  

«Roger?», asks Stan, evident worry in his tone of voice.

«It’s just... What you told me about us, it happened to me too, kind of. In my world, we kissed after the Olympic Games, but then nothing more happened. I guess, it’s not what happened here?»

Stan gives him a little smile. «Definitely not. Well, the days after had been kind of awkward. We flew back together to Switzerland but soon you went to Basel and I got back home too, and we didn’t really have the chance to discuss about what happened – not that one of us had perfect memory of it, actually. So I just got on with my life, happy enough with the gold medal and sure that all that happened between us happened just because of the alcohol. Except, a month later, I found you ringing at the doorbell in the morning – you’ve always had this habit of waking me up so soon when there’s something you need to get off your chest, always. When I opened the door, you didn’t even leave me the time to understand what was going on, or just to wake up properly, and you were kissing me.»

So, it has been him to decide everything here. It’s strange, when he thinks of how reluctant he’s been about talking to Stan about Beijing.  

«And then... Well, it has been hard at first. It took time for you to find the courage to tell Mirka all that happened, and the same was for me with Ilham. That, and coming out to the world. I told you countless times that I didn’t think the world was ready for this, and at some point you just couldn’t care less, since when we won the Davis Cup, the first thing you did was kissing me in the middle of the court. Not that I complained,» he smirks, «I’m still sure I would have never had the guts to do that. Luckily, you did it.»

Roger feels his cheeks flushing at the memory he doesn’t have, but that he can picture so easily in his mind. When Stan wins, he’s shining, but when they win together, there’s nothing more beautiful in the world than the smile he always gives him, and the way his eyes crinkle, curving all his face in the movement of his mouth. So, he has no problem at all imagining how easy it would be to just go and kiss him in the middle of a crowd, when he looks at him like that.

«I guess you were right about the world not being ready for that.»

Stan lets out a brief laugh. «Of course I was right. Well, I must admit I expected it to be worse, I kind of expected not to be able to step a foot on a tennis court anymore, and even if sometimes I felt like that, in the end I could always make it. Maybe it was because one of the people involved was one of the greatest tennis players ever, not to mention one of the most loved? I don’t know. But well, the first times were truly awkward. Our friends supported us, and of that I’m still grateful, but surely not everyone was that happy in the locker room, and we both knew that. And also, when I stepped on the pitch I was sure everyone would see just our kiss and not how I play anymore, no matter all you told me, I couldn’t help myself. You, on the contrary, looked just perfect, as usual.»

Roger snorts.

«It’s true! You just kept on winning, as if nothing happened, and I couldn’t understand at all how you did it. You always had this infuriating ability of leaving everything that wasn’t strictly related to tennis outside the tennis court...  While I started being not concentrate anymore on the game, it was harder and harder for me to keep playing. I was desperate, and near the point of leaving you; after all that mess that we started I’d have enjoyed our life together just so little, if it meant I couldn’t have my tennis back. And then, of course, you pointed out that leaving you wouldn’t have erased the fact that everyone on Earth now knew about what happened between us. Talking about one of those infuriating ability of yours...»

Roger feels his lips stretching in a knowing smile, because he might have not lived this scene in particular, but many times happened that Stan was nervous about nothing really serious, and he’s always found a way to calm him down.

«It wasn’t that easy, again, not to me. I still don’t know how you accepted all that without even blinking, you would just ignore the slurs on social media, the nasty comments from famous people, the annoying questions from the press... While I thought I was going mad. I took some weeks away from you after we had that discussion, I needed to clear my mind off, and I went to Sweden to train with Magnus for some time. Turned out, that was the best decision I could take, since I found out I missed you too much to leave you, and that I couldn’t focus on tennis if I knew you were feeling bad too. I realized there that even if I stopped seeing you, that wouldn’t have meant I’d been able to play tennis like I did before, I would have missed you too much. You and my tennis, at that point, were too entwined to let go of one of you and choose the other.»

Roger is almost embarrassed at that sentence: it’s probably the best thing ever a man like Stan could have told him, it means he can’t choose what he’s done for all his life over him, what he’s dedicated his whole life to, not anymore. It’s probably the best way he could find to paraphrase an “I love you”.

«I must love you that much, if I agreed to live together in Lausanne.» Roger flashes him a smile, trying to get himself too out of the embarrass. Well, actually he’s the only one who’s feeling uncomfortable with Stan telling him that he matters to him more than everything in this world.

«Yeah...», just says Stan, and for some seconds the expression on his face is so painful that Roger now regrets having said that. What an idiot. If he’s confused about the situation, the same of course must be for Stan, who’s found in his bed a husband that’s not like his husband anymore. But Stan regains his composure quickly.

«Yeah, well, it wasn’t easy, at first, we argued a lot about the city. You said it was just stupid to buy another house since you still got yours in Basel and it was big enough for all our daughters too, but I really wasn’t convinced. It was, you know, the fact that you shared that house with Mirka... I wanted a fresh start for our family. And I didn’t want to speak Swiss German all the time, of course, it meant I had to learn it before», Roger laughs at that. «Then, it was easier than we expected it to be: we got married when you decided to retire from professional tennis one year ago, and then we decided we could officially move here, so that I didn’t have to change my training centre. Well, not that we spent here that much time, actually, you know how long our season is, but...»

 _I really must love you that much_ , thinks Roger, but keeps it for himself this time. And the thought doesn’t even surprise him: it’s so easy to be grow affectionate with Stan that there’s nothing incredible in him giving Stan all that he wants. He’s just so beautiful, when he’s happy. And he feels he shouldn’t be thinking that right now, but he just can’t help it.  

«...and then when I retired too, you came up with this idea of opening the tennis academy here, in Lausanne. So we stayed. Looks like you can survive speaking French all your life, even if you’ve insisted a lot to teach Swiss German to our daughters.»

«They have to talk with my relatives too, no? You won’t convince their grandmother to speak to them in a language that’s not Swiss German.»

Stan rolls his eyes, but Roger doesn’t miss the spark in his eyes, even if he’s not openly laughing.

 

\-----

 

«I told you, he’ll be completely discreet. Nothing of this story will come out of this place.»

Roger knows, at this point, that he should totally believe in what Stan says. Not just because of the love he clearly has for Roger, whoever this Roger is and that is not him, but also because this story on newspapers would mean the end of the quiet life of this family, and Roger is sure that Stan would die, instead of having the private life of their daughters on every media.

Still, he’s unsure, and nervously walks in the waiting room, small steps forth and backwards while trying not to think of anything, especially about the possibility that the doctor won’t find a solution, until Stan tells him to sit down because he’s giving him nausea with all that rhythmic movement. He does as he’s told, and then starts drumming his fingers on the chair, until Stan makes an annoyed sound and takes that hand in his and gives it a squeeze, before starting caressing it gently, in a soothing way. Roger leaves it there.

The doctor calls them back in his office, and Stan feels a little relieved.

«For what we can see, mister Federer, there is nothing wrong with your brain. No injuries, no fractures, nothing at all. The psychiatrist agrees with me, and says he didn’t find anything wrong or strange with your behaviour and your answers.»

Roger talks before Stan can say anything. «But... But there must be something! I can’t just wake up one morning and find myself in a world that’s not mine!»

Stan flinches, albeit lightly, but doesn’t say a word, his eyes glued on the face of the man in front of him.

The doctor pinches his nose, his eyes closed. «I don’t know what I can do. The only thing I can tell you is that you need to stay relaxed the more you can. Avoid alcohol, stress of any kind. I can prescribe you something to sleep every night, but that’s all. And we can try to find a solution, you’ll have to come here and we will try to understand what’s happening in your brain. But I can’t assure you we’ll get to a solution of any kind.»

Brutally honest. Roger feels like crying, but nods. He doesn’t know where else to go in order to find a reason behind this story, and he has nothing else to hold on to if not this research the doctor will try to make. He was just sure that a doctor could have a solution for this, he was the only man that could give him an explanation. And it turns out he doesn’t, Roger has to admit while he reads the names of the medicines the doctor wrote down for him.

Stan doesn’t say a word until they’re out of the cabinet, sitting in their car.

«We can ask someone else. Someone might have a different point of view-»

«No.»

Then, Stan gives a punch to the steering wheel, and as soon as he’s done that he looks regretful, and draws a long breath. «Why not? Why not trying?»

Roger takes some moments before answering, unsure about how the younger will react to whatever he says. «Stan, you’ve seen the results of the analysis, and those aren’t the hypothesis of a doctor, they’re real. And they say I don’t have a problem a doctor can solve. I’ll go to him every week and try to find a solution. I guess I can only ask a doctor to help find the way back home, I don’t see anyone else able to do it and bring me back to normality.»

«Home,», Stan spits out that word as if it’s poisoned. «As if what you have here isn’t home.»

«Stan...»

«Because it isn’t, right? It doesn’t matter that here you have a husband that loves you and three daughters that would love to have their dad playing with them as he always do, a dog that’s arriving and that’s for sure that our Charlene on her own won’t be able to look after, whatever she says. All this is nothing, right? You’re here alone, no one loves you, this is a very horrible world where you have to find a way to escape from it, because it’s unbearable.»

Roger looks at him, wide-eyed.

«Don’t be unreasonable, Stan. This isn’t what I meant.»

«No? “Back to normality”, guess who’s just said it. I give you some clues: he’s in this car and it’s not me», Stan spits it out, and Roger feels all the sarcasm giving him a kick in his stomach.

«Can you blame me, Stan? You are being an amazing person with me and my problem, I know, but this is not my place. This is not the Roger you love.»

Stan covers his face with his hands. «Don’t ever say that again», he whispers, so softly that Roger isn’t sure he should have heard that.

 

\-----

 

_“To feel fine, I think of you._

_To feel bad, I think of you and me.”_

 

 

Roger does exactly as the doctor said. He wakes up, has breakfast with Stan and the kids, who never cease to ask him weird questions he’s not sure what he should answer, like, for example, if this summer he and Stan are going to bring them to Australia, or if Alexia can invite a friend from school to spend the afternoon at their home. Thankfully, Stan is always there to save him when he doesn’t have a clue about what to say.

He spends the days making researches on internet: about what his disease might be, about how to recover from amnesia (it’s not amnesia, he knows, but he has no clues about it and about what to search on Google, so he sticks with it), about his life too – he can’t help it, he’s curious about what his life with Stan has been, but doesn’t want to ask him since the scene outside the doctor’s office is still very fresh in his mind, and surely it’s the same for Stan. He finds photos of them celebrating that famous Davis Cup, photos of him after having retired cheering for Stan, their daughters surrounding him, articles and interviews about how much their life changed after discovering they were in love and how good this has been for their tennis, in the end.

They look happy, that’s for sure, thinks Roger while he passes through photos and photos of them. It’s like he can see in every photo a spark in their eyes that makes them both glow.  

This daily routine works for the first day, then the second and then even the third too.

On the fourth, Roger just can’t stay on that sofa a second more.

Stan is texting his brother when he hears noises coming from the corridor and runs there, to find Roger picking up from the floor some racquets that used to lie on top of the shelf there.

«What are you doing?»

«I’m going to play», he answers. «I can’t stay here any longer, I’m going to die on that sofa. Maybe if I try to do what I do every day, maybe something will change...»

A last, desperate move that to Roger’s eyes too doesn’t seem other than that, but he has to try. At this point he’s ready to try everything that comes to his mind, which is what he’s actually doing. He feels inside this isn’t going to have any effect, but quiets down that sensation quickly. It’s tennis, it has to work. It worked just fine all his life.

Stan looks on the verge of saying something but then he doesn’t. Instead, he picks a t-shirt and a pair of shorts for Roger from a closet, and puts them in a bag lying in their bedroom. «Be careful, ok?» That’s the only thing Stan manages to tell him. Roger feels a lump in his throat that can’t name, and that doesn’t go away when he goes through the entrance door and feels Stan eyeing him with something similar to desperation.

He vaguely remembers where the tennis court in which he played with Stan when he stayed with him in Lausanne is, but it takes him not much to find it and to get ready for some activity.

He’s sure this must help him. Tennis has always been there for him, it’s what he has done for all his life, what he dedicated all his life to, what has been filling his days for so many years. Already the sensation of weighing a racquet in his hand makes him feel better. Movements. Backhands, forehands. His hair band half covered by his hair that starts drenching in sweat.

He feels better than he’s been feeling in the last days spent here. Not that it was that hard, if he has to be honest with himself. (The thought of Stan baking in the morning for the daughters and making them laugh runs in his head and he has to concentrate to take it out of it. That felt good, alongside with the love that fills Stan’s eyes every night when he thinks Roger is already asleep and looks at him for long time.)

When he’s finished showering, though, he knows he’s at the same point he was before playing. Nothing has changed, he’s still in Lausanne and with no memory or understanding of how he got there. Roger starts feeling very frustrated.

He doesn’t really know what to do to keep his mind occupied and not think of this story. There’s a park he remembers, he goes there and tries to read the newspaper he bought. It doesn’t last much: staying on a bench is exactly like staying on the sofa of the living room.

So instead he chooses to go for a walk.

He has never quite thought about it, too absorbed in his life as a tennis champion and a husband, and not much later as a father, but now that he has more free time than he probably has ever had in his own life, he sense that there’s something that doesn’t click the right way. He remembers Beijing very well, remembers it as one of the happiest moment of his life. He was at the best moment of his career, and the Olympic gold medal is one of the best trophies a player can win, if not the best (well, nothing ever can beat Wimbledon, ok, but apart from that). And if he was sad because he lost the single one, winning it in the doubles with Stan had washed away all the sadness. He could never forget the expression on Stan’s face after the last point, his exhaustion mirrored his own but the smiles too. Stan was just 23 back then, and he had a gold medal around his neck, beaming as Roger has seen him doing few, rare times.

And then, his memories of the night are a bit blurred. He remembers going out in the Olympic village with Stan to celebrate and ending up pretty much wasted, like he hasn’t done in years. He won a lot before, yes, but he wasn’t really one to get drunk so often, also because of the care he had of his health. He needed to be very concentrated on his body always, and drinking alcohol till the point of not knowing left from right surely wasn’t the best way to do it. But that night he really couldn’t care less about anything. Olympic champion along with his best friend; not something you can easily do another time in an entire lifetime. When they finally got back to their hotel, it had been very hard not to stumble over everything, their own foot too, giggling all the time like teenagers drunk for the first time. A bit it was like this, Roger thinks. He’s always had tennis in his mind since he was very young, and sometimes he thinks he missed on something like these little things, not that he complains: he’s more than happy with what he accomplished in his life, and the results of his sacrifice has been well paid in the end.

Stan, by the way, kept on babbling that he wasn’t drunk, he was just very tired and because of that everything seemed to be on the verge of falling down, and Roger was just too wasted to tell him that it happened because he was drunk, so, when Stan said he would have helped his friend reaching his bed, he let him do that. And when Stan collapsed on him, Roger wasn’t in the best position of complaining, his tongue felt like it was made of stone, and keeping quiet seemed easier. Stan too seemed too tired to talk some more, his forehead leant on Roger’s shoulder. At some point he looked up at his face, and Roger remembers it well for the state he was in; he remembers the eyes, crinkling with an amused smile and glossy because of the alcohol. And then, without saying a word, he lowered the head, this time to move his lips on his neck, kissing it, biting it, and all Roger could think of, more or less coherently, was that nothing ever felt better than the sensation of having the weight of Stan’s body on his, his mouth moving on his skin, running up on his chin, searching for his lips.

And then, as it has started, it ended: Stan rolled off his body and stayed there on his bed panting slowly, and they both drifted off to sleep, tired and wasted and overwhelmingly happy.

It was the morning after that had been awkward. They both played it cool, as if nothing serious really happened between them, as if they agreed without speaking about it that it was nothing worth talking about. They were Olympic champions, happy, drunk and friends; maybe it wasn’t really normal but not even _that_ strange. There had always been affection between them, physical contact, easiness at speaking of everything. They were close, and that was all. At home, they both had someone waiting for them. Case closed. Coming back to Switzerland as champions felt amazing, but soon they had to part their ways to go back to their cities, and didn’t talk about what happened before that.

And neither after that. It took them long before playing again together, and even when they were in the same tournaments, it looked like they just weren’t able to find some time together, as they usually did before Beijing. Stan seemed to want to spend all his free time with the French players, he was always around Paire, they started playing together and even won a title, and he so looked happy to stay with him that much that Roger just didn’t mention it anymore. A person who’s not coping well with the fact that they kissed surely wouldn’t look all that shiny next to someone else, right? Of this Roger was more or less sure, even if he couldn’t not admit that watching him playing doubles with Paire made him feel a sort of sting in the stomach, an ache that took some time to fade away. They still played doubles together when playing the Davis Cup, but knowing Stan was enjoying them more with another man made something gnawing in the pit of his stomach.

Roger sighs, lets his eyes roam over the lake. He remembers Stan bringing him here, taking him to his favourite spot to sit and just admire the reflexes of the sun on the water, playing with it. After some time, it all went back to normal, and they were best friends again as nothing happened and no day has passed with them not really talking.

Roger has always been fond of him, but between the tournaments and his personal life, with the marriage and the girls, he was caught in a rush and really had his mind, and his time especially, full of enough things. If Stan was happy with his new French friend and didn’t call him that much anymore, why would have he questioned it? It would have been so easy, back then, to talk with Stan about everything, getting off his chest that night that he couldn’t forget, despite all the rush that his life was, and had an hard time to suppress in his mind. But he never brought it on, not even when eight years had passed and everything looked at his own place, when it could be a safe territory. He never did. He wonders now if life could have been different...

 _Kind of late to cry over spilled milk_ , he thinks. And complain about something that followed one of his decisions has never also been one of his habit, at all: not in tennis, when he decided to play a tournament when he wasn’t completely fit, and neither in his private life. He won’t start now; though, if he closes his eyes for a second, he can’t help wondering what would have happened if he did something different in the past, this time.

When he’s finally back home, the sun is setting. Roger opens the door and goes straight to the bedroom, sure he won’t be able to talk with the daughters now, he hears them quietly laughing in the kitchen and it pulls at his heart. It would be difficult to seem happy and calm like usual, not after having basically ended all the options he could think of, not after having spent an entire afternoon trying to understand if he did the right thing with his real life. When he’s inside it, all he can do is sit down and cover his face with his hands, his fingers gently massaging his temples that hurt and hurt.

Half an hour later, the door opens. Roger feels a weight sitting down on the mattress, next to him and slowly moves away his hands to look. Stan is holding a plate with some sandwiches on it, a bottle of water in the other hand.

«Thought you hadn’t eat anything all day, so...» Stan manages to give him a small smile, with some effort.

The thought of eating never even crossed his mind during all the day. «Thank you», murmurs Roger, and gives a bite to one of them. He didn’t remember about having to eat, too absorbed in his thoughts and his sadness, but his body reacts in a positive way to some food, finally.

«So, I guess you haven’t discovered anything», asks Stan without actually asking, and it’s surely not something he has to answer, or that he actually knows how to answer. Roger knows that his face and his behaviour are already speaking loud enough. Instead, he bites his sandwich another time.

«Roger... Would it be so bad? If you’d have to stay here forever, would it be so horrible for you? I hate to see you hurting like this...»

 _No_. That’s the answer that comes very fast to his lips. It wouldn’t be bad to share his life with Stan, to have the younger Swiss cooking for him every day, to raise their kids. To play tennis with him and their daughters and teach them together what they know and probably make champions out of them, to bring them to school every morning, to enjoy the sight of Stan dealing with trying to help them with their homework, his frowning brows that Roger would smooth with his fingers, in a gentle move. To see his smile every morning, to find Stan’s cups of coffee left empty around the house.

«Stan... It’s not my life», and he’s on the verge of saying _sadly_ , but he stops before he tell him that. Stan, though, seems to understand what’s stuck in his mouth, and moves toward him, leaving him a soft kiss on the forehead.

Roger closes his eyes, his vision has become all blurred. He doesn’t say anything when Stan circles his shoulders with an arm, and the younger too doesn’t say anything when Roger leans his head on his shoulder. He just holds him a little tighter, with both of his arms.

 

\-----

 

«You surely don’t remember, but tomorrow night we should have a dinner.» Stan’s voice surprises Roger while he’s flicking through the channels of the television. It has never struck him how few interesting things you can see in the afternoon.

«A dinner?» asks, dropping the remote on the sofa, next to him.

«Yeah, we started this habit after winning our last Davis Cup together, every year in this period we meet with Seve, Marco and the others. We used to believe it brought us luck, now we just do it so we can all meet together at least once a year.»

Roger breathes deeply. Until now, he just had to deal with Stan and the daughters, and even if very awkward he didn’t have many problems with the kids, also thanks to Stan running to help him. But this, a dinner with all their friends? He guesses Stan can’t trick them like he does to distract Charlene when she starts asking to many things and Roger just doesn’t have a clue about what to answer. And there are a lot of things he doesn’t know that they surely expect him to know, for example, when did they win here the last Davis Cup? An entire night with them. He would have never thought that a dinner with all his best mates could be something unbearable, even just the thought of it, except it’s exactly what it is now. There’s a big knot instead of his stomach now. He wonders, is there a way he can learn all he should know about himself before tomorrow? And the second after he’s almost laughing at himself: how does one study the real life of himself as another person? Can it be even a thing?

«You know, I can tell them you’re not feeling well and that you’re not able to leave the house, if you don’t want to meet them. There is no problem at all, they’re friends, they won’t be asking anything.» Stan says it quickly, calm, as if he had already prepared two sentences and waited to see the reaction on Roger’s face before deciding which one actually say.

That’s when Roger can’t keep it inside him anymore. This, Stan doing for the umpteenth time what he doesn’t want to do just to help Roger, is too much. He can’t. His eyes stings, once again, and this time he doesn’t close them to stop his tears from falling. He’s tired of this story, tired of trying to find an answer to a problem that he doesn’t even know what it is, tired of seeing Stan playing the part of the gentle and sensitive husband with him when he’s surely everything but happy that the love of his life doesn’t even recognize him anymore.

Callous fingers run on his cheeks, drying the lines left by the tears. «It’s ok,» whispers Stan, his face near Roger’s one, trying to soothe him with his words as if the older was one of his kids. «Don’t worry now, there’s an easy solution, we won’t go to the dinner...»

Stan’s forehead leans against his, his eyes searching for Roger’s and he’s happy when the older finally lifts them and meet his. Stan notices how his lips are tight, in his last move of not breaking down in sobs, he knows that, and he doesn’t think anymore when he gently lays his own lips on Roger’s mouth, only a brush at first, almost soothing, and then, when Roger doesn’t push him away, with more strength, taking his lower lips between his own teeth this time and sucking it lightly. Then, Roger answers back, and doesn’t let him a chance to leave his mouth.

After this, there’s nothing but them, kissing as if there was nothing else in this world. Stan, that had been very careful all these days to touch him the less possible, now can’t keep his hands off of Roger’s face, chest, arms, wants to stop wasting time not expressing out loud what he feels for him, in every way he can. Roger doesn’t know anything anymore if not one thing: he wants this.

He wants Stan, wants to feel his skin on his, trace the features of his face with his own fingers, touch that body that has seen so many times but never in the way he’s looking at it now: with reverence, desire, maybe love too, even if he doesn’t dare to name that feeling that’s invading him now, a feeling that has been burning low for so much time and that now is flaring, running through him, finally free. That look, combined with Stan’s hands slipping under his shirt and touching directly his skin and muscles light a fire in Roger’s lower belly. When they kiss again, it’s with more force that Roger assaults him, greedy of his flavour, newly discovered but always known, of the caresses of Stan’s tongue, of the itching of Stan’s beard against his chin.

Stan pushes him towards their bedroom, his mouth never really leaving the other’s skin, moving on his neck, his cheeks, and Roger lets him do that; he’d let him do everything, at the moment. Which is what actually happens; he lets Stan help him out of his shirt, and the look he gives to his bare chest now just makes him feel bolder. Stan wants him, desires him, and Roger is at this point lost in the sensations that Stan’s body under his fingers gives him. The scent of his skin is everywhere, inebriating, and it’s going to make him drunk, if he won’t go crazy before under the touches of the younger that marks all of the body he can reach. 

A moan escapes from his own mouth when Stan’s thumb brushes the head of his cock, and he doesn’t know if he should be embarrassed by the fact that he’s reacting like that, like he’s never been touched in his own life. But then, Stan looks at him with those pretty eyes of him, amused, full of the love that he feels for Roger that he has no doubts about it, and of what’s clearly lust. There’s nothing he has to be ashamed of, not here, not with him.

«I got you», tells him Stan, as if he has sensed some of Roger’s worries, his mouth pressed on his lower abs. Roger’s hips jerk up violently at that, letting a louder groan escape his mouth, and Stan stops his movements, looks at him straight in his eyes once again. «I got you», he repeats, before lowering his mouth again on his body. Roger inhales sharply in the attempt of not moaning that loud again, tries to keep still as much as he can, his fingers gripping the sheets.

Roger trusts him. And even if he didn’t, there’s not much he’s thinking coherently now, not when he’s engulfed in the warm mouth of Stan, that is moving and not giving him any time to think. Blissful. The strength of the orgasm that hits him makes him shut his eyes, tight, while his fingers grip the sheets so hard, this time, that his knuckles turns white, and he’s sure they’re going to hurt after. As if he really could think of an ‘after’ right now, with liquid bones and without an ounce left of strength.

When he feels ready to open his eyes again, he’s welcomed by the vision of Stan’s face, his cheeks reddened, a lazy smile on his mouth, to which he answers with a brief, ghostly kiss on the lips, still not realizing what happened. Roger caresses his chest slowly, feeling the younger going tense under his hands touching him, hands that slowly, painfully slowly for Stan, run down his body, mapping it, enjoying the feeling of solid muscles that twitch at the contact. Roger has never done such a thing before, he realizes when his trembling fingers gently start touching his cock, somehow in a shy way. Stan’s eyes go closed at that, putting his own hands over Roger’s ones and closing them around him, as if he wanted to give the older the confirmation that he’s doing the right thing. Aroused by everything, by the lack of sex in the last days, by Roger’s shyness, which is an incredible event, by the sound of Roger panting near him, still dizzy with the orgasm, it doesn’t take much for Stan to brink over the edge, eyes wide open and a strangled sound that escapes from his mouth.

Roger lets Stan dry his chest when everything ends and they both come down from their high: he doesn’t move anymore, but feels like he’s a cat displayed in the summer sun, in the complete absence of everything that isn’t Stan. Roger runs his fingers again and again over Stan’s jaw, caressing the beard, tracing the lines of his lips curved in a soft, endeared smile. As if now that he’s tried on his skin what it means to be loved like that by Stan, he just can’t get enough of him, he wants to learn all of his edges and curves now.

«Do you remember us, now?», asks him Stan, with such a pure, gentle expression that Roger would probably prefer dying instead of telling him that no, nothing, because this has never happened to him before. But he knows this will break Stan and probably himself again too, it will hurt both of them. And Roger just doesn’t want to see his Stan hurting again because of him. So, instead of answering, he nestles his head in the crook of Stan’s neck, leaving there a fleeting kiss, letting himself giving in to the sensation of drifting off, too exhausted because of everything that happened to him since he woke up here.

Stan understands.

 

\-----

 

When Roger wakes up, after a short nap, everything feels strange. Stan’s not there with him, and he misses the sight of the younger man, the warmth of his body irradiating from him, the sound of his breath next to his ear, as it was when he fell asleep with him so near, some hours before. Roger thinks about having a shower as soon as he gets up from the bed, and he’s sorry at the thought he’s going to take away the unique scent of Stan that still lingers on his body, of that he’s sure. It’s the same scent that he smelled from his jacket and calmed him down the first day here, when he wandered in Lausanne, desperate.

 _Idiot_ , he tells himself, before having that shower.

When he finally reaches Stan, he’s on the sofa, texting someone, and gives him a small smile as soon as he enters the living room.

«Hey. You were sleeping so well, I thought you would have enjoyed some more time on the bed. I saw you didn’t sleep much these last days, even with the pills the doctor prescribed you.»

«Thank you», says Roger, and he means it. His headache is still there, but he feels a lot better now, since he’s been sleeping definitely not enough, always thinking and always too nervous. Stan, though, doesn’t look so fine; his smile, already little, now has disappeared. «What’s up?»

«Do you think what happened between us has been a mistake?» Direct. And unexpected, thinks Roger, frowning before answering.

«No. Really, Stan, I don’t.»

«Well, I do.»

Roger frowns more now, definitely not understanding anything anymore.

«I love you. I love you but you don’t, and I know that. And it’s ok, I mean, it’s not, but I thought at some point you would have overcome this sort of nervous breakdown or whatever it is that you’re suffering from, that waiting for you to come back wasn’t that much of a problem. How long could you have gone on with this story? But then, Roger, you started crying and I couldn’t hold myself back. There was the love of my life crying next to me, how was I supposed not to hug you, not to make you feel better? How was I supposed not to kiss you? Not when you answered me back too...»

Roger doesn’t find the words to answer for some seconds, moved inside by the words about his feelings for him, as if he ever had doubted the love Stan has for his husband, for _him_. But he’s also angry, very, completely taken aback by what he actually said.

«Stan, this _isn’t_ a mental breakdown! How can you still be thinking of something like this?! It won’t be easy, it’s not right now too, I know, but I’ll find a way to resolve this problem, whatever it is!»

«The problem!» Stan laughs with a sarcastic laugh, and he’s standing on his feet now. «A problem, that’s all I am, right?»

«This isn’t what I said, and you perfectly know that. I just... I have to find something that can connect me to my existence, I know it has to exist-»

«Why? Why do you have to find it? You don’t like this life?» Stan fires back his answer with a strength that shows Roger (not that he hadn’t imagined it) how much these last days have been hard on him, trying to keep inside all the worries and the comments he wanted to make to Roger’s decisions and that he never made.

Roger opens his mouth to reply, and then shuts it without saying a word. The truth is, he doesn’t know anymore what is the life that he likes.

«Why, Roger? Why kissing me, if it’s not me the person you love?» There’s a note of desperation in his words beneath all the anger, Roger can hear it clearly. And, again, Roger has no answers.

«So what, Roger? Has this been just another of your researches to see if you could find _a way back_ to your damned existence, whatever that means? Great. Fuck you, Roger.»

Stan storms out of the room and Roger still has to say a word. He didn’t want to hurt Stan, before, when they laid together in bed, and now it seems he still managed to hurt him. It seems in the end all he can do is hurting Stan, in this world and in the other too.

Now that he sees him walking away from him, though, Roger has a reaction. Maybe this isn’t what he wants now and will forever, or what he wanted just three days ago, but there’s something that now he knows: he can’t stand the idea of Stan not being with him anymore, not looking at him with those eyes filled with love that were able to make him feel at home even when he woke up in another world.

Roger runs up the stairs and finds Stan in their bedroom, at the window, staring out.

«Go the fuck away, Roger. Fucking leave me alone, I’m sure you can try other _experiments_ in the meantime.» His voice is broken, and Roger feels his heart clenching. It’s not that he’s never seen Stan crying, but it has never been his fault, and that hurts.

He’s unsure about what to do. His Stan would laugh of him unsure about something, always saying that the great Roger Federer can do everything; he shakes his head as if to throw away the thought of another Stan, because it’s this Stan in front of him that matters now. Roger slowly approaches him, and Stan must be seeing him in the reflex of the window, but doesn’t move away. When Roger lays a hand his shoulder, he also expects to be punched back at least, and he finds himself thinking he’d deserve that, at least. But Stan doesn’t jump at his throat, at all. He just stays there, focused on whatever he’s faking he’s concentrated on outside the glass.

«I need to find a cure, Stan.» He feels the man tensing even more under his touch at those words. He grips it with more strength. «I need to find it, because I need to be sane to give you the love you deserve. The love I didn’t have the courage to live back when we kissed in Beijing, the love I didn’t even have the courage to discuss with you. But you deserve a person to know who he is and where he is, you shouldn’t settle for anything that isn’t the best for you, you deserve to be loved by a person who knows everything of his and your life.»

Stan doesn’t answer anything, but Roger can see in the reflex of the glass his eyes shutting close, while under his hand Stan’s body shakes a little, and after some time in which no one dares moving, Roger feels his body starting to release the nervousness. Then, Roger sneaks carefully an arm around his waist, and Stan leans in the touch; Roger lets out a long breath that he didn’t know he was keeping.

«I love you.» It’s barely more than a whisper, but it arrives directly to Roger’s heart and makes it flutter.  «No matter what happens, no matter what you can say, it’s something I can’t stop, something I can’t resist. I couldn’t stop loving you when loving you seemed to meant giving up on my entire life at that point, I won’t stop loving you because of this story. I just _can’t_.»

Roger’s nose is in Stan’s hair, breathing, filling his lungs with that scent that took so little time for him to fall in love with. «I’ll find a way, I promise. I want to stay here, with you, in this house in Lausanne. I just need to adapt to the idea I’m going to speak just French forever, I guess.»

Stan lets out a shaky laugh at that, and Roger is relieved that his lame joke had some of the hoped effects. «We can always spend the holidays in Basel.»

The older pulls a face at that, though Stan can’t see it: his face is buried in his neck, his chin leaning on his shoulder. «Sure. Charlene asked some days ago if we’re bringing them to Australia, why should they even see the difference between the two places.»

«You shouldn’t spoil them. You always do that.»

«Do I?», asks Roger, and Stan moves his head just enough to kiss him on his mouth, soft, long, without rush. There’s a lot of what they still can’t say to each other in that kiss, and Roger just loses himself in it, lets it flow through him, accepting the feelings he has for Stan, one step at time. He will be able to do it, he knows it, and he’s sure he’ll have Stan helping him in that. He couldn’t have asked for more.

«Stop it», says Stan, interrupting Roger’s hands that were slowly stroking his sides. «Stop it, I can’t resist if you go on. And I have to pick up the girls soon, I can’t be late.»

Roger smiles. «We’re going together, Stan. _We’re_ going to pick them up, together.» He’s rewarded by the broadest and truer smile he’s ever seen on Stan’s face.  «Of course you’re driving, I don’t have the faintest clue where the school is in this city...»

The younger can’t resist to give him another kiss, just a gentle and brief touch on the lips, before moving away from his embrace, shaking his head, but he’s laughing, while he picks up the keys of the car and moves towards the entrance door, with Roger following him. This time, Stan hands him his real jacket, before opening the door.

«You made me waste time and now I haven’t prepared them the lunch, and no, we’re not just taking them to eat out, we don’t-» Stan stops in the middle of the sentence when he hears a squeal behind him, and turns around to see Roger in clear pain, his hands gripping the sides of his head.

«The sun! I can’t... keep my eyes open, my head... hurts... too much...», tries to say Roger, before collapsing, fainted, in Stan’s arms.

 

\-----

 

Roger blinks his eyes once, twice, and finds himself laid on the tiles in a dressing room he knows perfectly well. It’s the one he’s been seeing for years and years in Basel.

«No. No», he groans, trying to stand up, but a pair of hands keeps him steady and pin him down again on the floor.

«Easy, Roger. Easy.» It’s Seve that’s telling him this, more than just a simple note of concern in his voice. Roger groans.

«No. I can’t be here now...»

«Are you hurting? God, you made me freak out, you weren’t moving or waking up, it was scary, Roger...»

«I...» His head hurts, Roger feels the pain from a spot on the back of his head, hidden under his hair. «What happened?»

«You slipped on the stairs and hurt your head. Nothing serious, I thought, but then you were unconscious and didn’t wake up, I was going to call someone now, but then I saw you moving, finally.» Seve looks at him like if he’s made of crystal, and thinks he’s going to break in his hands if he grips his shoulder too much.

Roger feels a wave of nausea washing him. «How long have I been like that?»

«I don’t know, about a minute? Probably less, it probably just felt that long because I was scared.»

A minute, or even less. It can’t be possible, he’s lived days with Stan, days in which he completely lost it and thought he was going mad, or he already was, and he found what could keep him sane, what always kept him sane, and it all lasted less than a minute.

Roger groans in pain.

«Roger! Are you hurting? Do I need to call a doctor?», asks Severin, anxious. «What are you doing, Roger, stay down, you-»

But Roger doesn’t listen to him and gets up on his feet. Only to let himself fall again on the ground in a bunch of seconds, dizzy and terribly pale. Severin puts his hands on his shoulder and looks at him in the eyes, questioning.

«Stay here. I’ll bring you some ice, and I call the doctor, now.»

«I don’t need him,» and Roger himself knows his tone has a whining note, but he couldn’t care at all now. «I only need Stan.» Stan, Stan and his scent and his warm skin and his open smile, that’s what would make him feel better now, he’d let Stan kiss him and everything would be fine. God, he’s gone crazy if he’s really thinking this.

Seve frowns. «What are you saying, Roger? Stan is in Rome, playing, he’s just won his match...»

Roger groans again, the thought of Stan being away from him, not only physically, is now unbearable. A fool, that’s what he is and what he has been. The taste of the kisses he shared with Stan in his head seems to still linger on his mouth, reminding him all that he has done wrong in his life here. A stupid, or better: a coward.

«Don’t worry, Seve. I just didn’t have to try to get up, but it’s nothing bad. I could use some ice, though, if you don’t mind.» Severin eyes him some seconds more, but then he decides Roger isn’t lying to him, and rushes to get more ice for his friend.

Alone, finally, he feels another wave of nausea rushing through him. Because of the concussion, probably, and more than probably because his head is still in another world, where he has Stan’s love for himself and they’re happy, and they took their chance, at whatever price it came.

Roger fishes his phone in his pocket and types, before he has the time to think about it twice.

_Hey. I need to talk with you._

After having pressed the send button, he adds another message.

_About Beijing._

He doesn’t know what will happen after this, or what he actually wants to tell Stan (saying that he got something like a vision won’t help his case, of that he’s sure), nor how he actually would like this story to end. He’s always liked his life, here, he loves his wife and their family, of that he’s sure.  Of another one thing he is sure, though: the feeling that rushes through him when he sees an incoming call from Stan, just a minute after he sent his texts, is the same that he felt, in that sort of dream he lived, when he held Stan in his arms. And that can’t mean anything bad.

 

_What matters is_

_something for what there isn't an ending._

_Don't believe it,_

_if someone tells you that_

_it will pass by on its own._

_I miss you and you don't know it._


End file.
